


get you to take my hand (reaching out far)

by theriveroflight



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Angst, Arguing, Choices, Flashbacks, Free Will, LBSC Sprint Fic Challenge, Other, Queer Het, Religious Guilt, Tragedy, Unresolved Emotional Tension, romance tagged to be safe, they're non-human beings they don't abide by our definitions of romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29830137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theriveroflight/pseuds/theriveroflight
Summary: They find out after dancing around the subject of the past. Confrontation ensues.
Relationships: Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Kudos: 12
Collections: LBSCSprintFicChallenge





	get you to take my hand (reaching out far)

**Author's Note:**

> so...yeah? title pulled from my brain
> 
> lbsc sprint fic challenge prompt: angel/demon au
> 
> queer het tag added for the inherent not-cisness of angels

“I should have known,” Marinette says, cradling his cheek carefully. “It radiates off of you. I just thought perhaps that you would be a challenge to corrupt. And I was right, but not in the way I thought.”

“I won’t fall,” Luka answers. “You don’t matter to me.”

“Are you sure about that?” Marinette asks, but her smirk is just superficial. She seems hurt and shaken underneath, using flirtation as a form of bravado.

“Are you?” he answers, stepping away from her.

* * *

_ Luka knew why he was on Earth. Salvation for the humans, etcetera etcetera. He was interested in saving them, but…there were certainly more important matters. Some people believed that there was no point in trying to save people, but he believed that everyone could be saved. _

_ And then he met Marinette. Marinette was cloaked in darkness (and that really should have been the first sign), and Luka…wanted to bring light into her life. _

_ He never thought for a second that she was anything besides human, someone who had done many bad things and shaking with the ghosts of all that. _

_ He knew that it would take work, work that could be spared for others, multiple humans. But rehabilitating this one girl was  _ important,  _ for some reason. She was different. Marinette affected him, and he figured as long as he made sure someone went to heaven it didn’t matter who how many. Though the mission was truly to save as many as possible…he had eternity at his fingertips. Marinette mattered now, and other humans would matter later. _

_ That was likely the first mistake. _

* * *

“Yes,” Marinette answers, purposefully letting her eyes flash with something more fiery, implying that there’s something burning beyond the skin of the human form she’s taken.

She doesn’t know why he’s so determined to save her. She never thought of herself as someone who could be saved, not since she was born in the first place. Or made. Something. It’s been far too long, she doesn’t even recall her own origins. But she knows she didn’t fall like the rest of them, she never declined — she’s always been like this, she’s  _ always  _ been demonic, evil, sinful.

She won’t repent.

He reaches out to touch her, and she flinches when his hand makes contact, because it hurts.

She lets the meat suit take the damage, retreating inside the shell so she can survive. The touch of an angel should have burnt her much more frequently than it did.

* * *

_ Marinette was given free reign, at long last, to attempt to bring more people down. She had heard tales of the people of Earth, neutral until meeting some corrupting force. _

_ She could certainly be that corruption. _

_ And it would be the greatest of challenges to take down the being that shone the brightest — Luka.  _

_ Luka was the most virtuous human she had ever met. It would be a challenge to take him down enough just to  _ purgatory,  _ let alone to the point where he would join her. _

_ And what a sweet torture that would be for him, to go because of her actions and then only be graced with her presence for the rest of his soul’s life. _

_ That would be the sweetest of punishments, in Marinette’s mind, though she was certainly no arbitrator. She wasn’t the one who mandated the punishment of the sinful. _

_ There were other humans, but they would just drive each other into corruption. She didn’t even  _ need  _ to get involved, the glories of a modern society. _

_ So she stayed with Luka. _

* * *

“You’re not…inherently irredeemable. Every demon was once an angel.”

Marinette snorts. “Not me. But that was  _ about  _ choice, was it not? The freedom for them to do what they wanted, so they didn’t have to follow the Lord’s orders.”

Luka shakes his head. “You aren’t getting it. You can  _ choose  _ to be better.”

“Or I can choose to be worse. On purpose.”

More of that inhumanity shows in every pore of her, and Luka lets a little bit of his own power shine through.

“But why would you want to?”

“I don’t want to go to heaven. Not if they don’t give people a choice in anything they do.”

“Do you give the [redacted] a choice in everything? A decision on their punishment?”

“Most people have committed crimes that are merely  _ innocent,”  _ Marinette argues in turn. She smolders in several different ways. “We’re not all paragons of perfection.”

“Marinette.”

“Is Luka even  _ close  _ to your true name?” she asks with a laugh.

“No, but it is…technically more true than the name that is  _ supposed  _ to be,” Luka answers. And it’s true; he can’t think of himself as anyone besides Luka Couffaine, despite being so much greater than that.

She exhales, and almost seems to  _ recede. _

“What are you doing?” she asks. “Why are you here?”

“The same reason you are. But for the opposite sort of enlightenment.”

“I make no promise of enlightenment. But mostly they just…they drive  _ themselves  _ away from your reach, you know? You expect too much of them.”

Luka doesn’t dare think about that.

“I am not the one in charge. I am just the soldier.”

“I pity you, whatever your true name may be, because you live a life where you do not have control, and you expect everyone else to just…roll over and submit.”

“Submit to the Lord. Your life will be ideal in return.”

“It’s about  _ restriction.  _ And sure, believe in that all you want, but would you consider your life ideal? You don’t even consider your assigned name true!” Marinette throws up her hands towards the end, and Luka has always admired how  _ animated  _ she is.

“As long as I am loyal to the Lord, everything will turn out just fine.”

“Are you sure about that?” Marinette asks, and he’s tempted to snap on her. How dare she challenge everything he’s ever believed in? How dare she try to  _ change  _ him? How dare she try to turn  _ him  _ against the one being he’s always believed in?

“I am certain. Now, leave me.”

“This is  _ my  _ territory,” she answers.

“Then I will go,” Luka replies.

* * *

She can’t even get him to agree with her. How was she ever supposed to corrupt him? The revelation that Luka is an angel is something that makes him ever the more infuriating, because she thought for a moment that she had a chance at something  _ genuine  _ with him. Better than any relations she’s had with humans, and far less tense than anything she’s had with other demons, the constant threat of backstabbing over her shoulder.

She doesn’t want to go after him. She’s planted the seed of  _ something  _ in his head, and it’s up to him to cultivate it. There’s a high chance that he’ll just repress it, but no repression lasts forever, and if she keeps wearing him down eventually that seed can grow into something that lets him  _ leave. _

Two alternatives, and Marinette would rather be in the one that gives her more choice, more freedom. She’s up here corrupting humans because she wanted to do something away from her domain, where she would just be…dissatisfied, frankly.

But at least she has the  _ choice  _ to leave.

She doesn’t think she could rise. But she could stay on Earth for the rest of time. She didn’t have to go back.

Luka would have to make that choice, too. And she hopes that her words were enough.

* * *

“I don’t want to fall,” he confesses in front of his altar. “They all told me it hurts like no other experience. But Marinette…that is not her true name, and she is not in her true form, but I wish to love her. Perhaps not in the same way that humans love each other, but in a way that only we have.” He sighs. “I am at a crossroads, when I have never had to face one before. So may I have the strength to make the correct decision.”

It is a prayer, in a way. It is a hope, a dream. He can’t have Marinette and Heaven. Love Marinette, and lose Heaven. Keep Heaven, lose Marinette.

When it comes down to it, a matter of…love, or safety.

They say an angel’s love is the purest in the world; they say demons know not love. But perhaps he can help Marinette know, and maybe that will be her salvation.

Because all he has ever wanted is for Marinette to be saved. If he can pull her up, then he can do anything. And he wants her to be saved, so they can serve together.

But what if they were to just…remain like this? Unchanging, a balancing act with no side taking over the other. Just…being.

But no, Luka has never had a choice. It will always be Heaven.


End file.
